I continue to encourage Windows users to compile their own. That is always the best way

How would I go about doing that? LOL. Is there a "free" Windows compiler out there? I have Xeon E5640.

I do have access to Visual Studio Community 2015; supposed to be the same as Professional without CodeLens.

On the other hand, is there some "newbie" guide to doing this with a fresh install of say, Debian 8.4? (Or would you recommend Ubuntu?)

I just made a Debian 8.4 VM. Maybe I'll do it over again.

This is compiled on windows with a free compiler, but it is a pain to set up if you don't know what you are doing. It can compile using mingw-w64 and msys, but you need to first compile all of the dependencies and link everything correctly.

I continue to encourage Windows users to compile their own. That is always the best way

How would I go about doing that? LOL. Is there a "free" Windows compiler out there? I have Xeon E5640.

I do have access to Visual Studio Community 2015; supposed to be the same as Professional without CodeLens.

On the other hand, is there some "newbie" guide to doing this with a fresh install of say, Debian 8.4? (Or would you recommend Ubuntu?)

I just made a Debian 8.4 VM. Maybe I'll do it over again.

cpuminer-opt doesn't compile on any form of VS.

There are two viable options.

1. Compile natively on Windows with mingw and msys. Instructions are in the README.md file.Installing msys and mingw_w64 can be a bit confusing. They are two seperate installs with different installersbut they are built to work together.

2. Install a Linux VM and compile and run cpuminer from the vm, full speed. I would recommend Ubuntu orMint. Fedora and centos are also good choices. Debian is not for newbies but if you already have it installedgo with it. Once the OS is installed you have to install the development tools. I don't have the minimalist commandto get everything (note to self to do that), I usually start with gcc and any of its dependencies and iterate from thereuntil it works. In addition to the develpopment tools there are some libraries that need to be installed. They are listedin README.md.

Usng a VM may be preferable if you intend to mine hodl with an older CPU because that doesn't work on Windows.

I continue to encourage Windows users to compile their own. That is always the best way

How would I go about doing that? LOL. Is there a "free" Windows compiler out there? I have Xeon E5640.

I do have access to Visual Studio Community 2015; supposed to be the same as Professional without CodeLens.

On the other hand, is there some "newbie" guide to doing this with a fresh install of say, Debian 8.4? (Or would you recommend Ubuntu?)

I just made a Debian 8.4 VM. Maybe I'll do it over again.

This is compiled on windows with a free compiler, but it is a pain to set up if you don't know what you are doing. It can compile using mingw-w64 and msys, but you need to first compile all of the dependencies and link everything correctly.

That was not the case for me using msys and mingw_w64. Nothing to compile except cpuminer-opt itself.

My 2 E5 Xeon 2670 dual platform, a total of 16 nuclear 32 threads, HMQ1725 algorithm is only 361K, this is not the normal bar @3.3.4 version

Can you provide more information? Are you saying HMQ1725 on v3.3.4 is slower than previous versions?Did you compile yourself or use a precompiled binary? Also please post the startup messages showing theCPU capabilities.

More technical detail but last line summarizes for users. Better?It would also be nice to include the -march flag either as specifiedor translated from native. Haven't found a way except indirectly viabuild features. Fortunately the ambuguity does not affect the miner'sdecision to use AES.

Does ubuntu have a "console" install? Non-graphical type? Of course I will go to their website. I know how to run a Pi2 a bit, and I think Rasbian is based on Debian, so ... well, that's just what I've been using for 20 years (as a newbie, 20 years a Linux newbie, go figure). Ubuntu is more recent (about 10+ years old), and is also Debian based.

Does ubuntu have a "console" install? Non-graphical type? Of course I will go to their website. I know how to run a Pi2 a bit, and I think Rasbian is based on Debian, so ... well, that's just what I've been using for 20 years (as a newbie, 20 years a Linux newbie, go figure). Ubuntu is more recent (about 10+ years old), and is also Debian based.

Last I checked (many moons ago) the server edition of ubuntu was text only so I'msure they do.I don't think you need to switch. If you 've been using Debian for so long and you know how to compileit should be a brease. I only recommended Ubuntu because it's trivial to install and has a lot morebells and whistles to make it more desktop friendly. Strip that away and it's basically all Debian.

My plan is to do a "net" install of Debian, basically the bare minimum, then figure out what I need to type next. Essentially a "step-by-step" from complete scratch/zero. It's in a VM, so no biggie if I have to do over and over just to get it right.

My plan is to do a "net" install of Debian, basically the bare minimum, then figure out what I need to type next. Essentially a "step-by-step" from complete scratch/zero. It's in a VM, so no biggie if I have to do over and over just to get it right.

My only experience with minimal installs is Centos. It provide the install time options for botha minimal install and development tools. After that install some of the missing dependencies for cpuminer-optthen pick off any stragglers when the compiler complains about them. That would make for a pretty lean machine.

My plan is to do a "net" install of Debian, basically the bare minimum, then figure out what I need to type next. Essentially a "step-by-step" from complete scratch/zero. It's in a VM, so no biggie if I have to do over and over just to get it right.

I've been doing Debian minimal netinstalls as part of job for 16 years.

You might want to set up sudo first, debian doesn't install it for you (ubuntu does).

so login as root first, "apt-get install sudo", then run "visudo" to edit /etc/sudoers and add yourself there, then log out and login as yourself.

Then run "sudo apt-get install build-essential" -- it will install essential stuff needed to have a C/C++ compiler that can compile.

After that it boils down to what you need to compile, in case of cpuminer-opt it's "sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libjansson-dev libgmp-dev automake".